How to know when the world has passed 1.5°C of global warming
We explain in four charts
ON FEBRUARY 8TH the Copernicus Climate Change Service, an EU agency, announced that in the 12 months to January 31st the world’s temperature had been, on average, 1.52°C higher than pre-industrial levels. The Paris agreement, a climate treaty of 2015, committed countries to keep the rise in “global average temperature…well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and seek to limit it to 1.5°C. Can people say that the world has surpassed one of the Paris milestones? If it has not, what would be needed to make such a claim?
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